Pancham's birthday and his legacy to Hindi cinema

June 27, 2013 05:55:15 PM ISTBy Enkayaar, Glamsham Editorial

There have been scores of music composers who have held their baton, composed melodies, and gone into oblivion. But arguably there is only one music director whose birthday is being celebrated today, Rahul Dev Burman, who is known as Pancham to his friends, is the only music director whose music continues to grow and grow on the generations.

RAHUL DEV BURMAN

Even Amit Trivedi, the hot shot music director of the present times, has gone on record to claim that his latest music on offer LOOTERA is a tribute to the genius of Pancham. LOOTERA set in Bengal of 1950s indeed provides ample opportunity for the music director to go retro experimenting with music, and Amit Trivedi has indeed done a commendable job as a tribute to the memory of this wizard of music.

What has endeared Pancham across the generations is the fact that he mixed the music into such a heady concoction that across all the night clubs, discotheques etc., all it is the music of Pancham that rules the roost, either as original composition or as a remix, but it does make heads drool.

How many of us are aware about the fact that Pancham also had his eureka moment which resulted in ever hit song- 'O mere dil ke chain' from MERE JEEWAN SAATHI, indeed he was bathing in his tub when the tone flashed into his mind and he came out running from the tub and recorded the whole song in his tape recorder. Indeed, his tape recorder was his constant companion at a time when hard discs where yet unheard off, and one often wonders whether if he were alive and he could leverage on to the tools of technology what could he have done for Hindi music.

He was the man who always experimented and when it rained in Mumbai Khandala was his favorite escapade, where in the background of cascading rains he used to compose his music. Anecdote is that he had called Gulzar in those cascading rains to Khandala to hear out the music of his non- filmy album- DIL PADOSI HAI.

For some he was considered as a plagiarist who lifted music, but if one listens to his supposed compositions, that are called as rip-offs, a characterizing motif that would appear on a recurring basis, is that it had Pancham's own interpretation. It was more like a research work where one dug into the resources present as a part of research but interpreted it in his own way, as if it was his thesis, his contribution to music. He was in fact one of the best music arrangers Hindi cinema would ever see, and Amit Trivedi also being one of the most accomplished arrangers in present times, did not have any hesitation to pay tribute to the genius called Pancham.